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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.
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Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are so thankful for this opportunity to spend just a little while in a consideration of God's Word. Today our study is going to come for the most part from Romans chapter 12. Of course, if you have a Bible close at hand, it would be wonderful for you to take a look at that. But it may be that you just want to listen along closely to our reading of the Scripture and make sure that we are making the right applications from those passages. This program is called Back to the Bible and that expresses our interest to do what God has said in the Scriptures. So in what we believe, in what we teach, in what we practice, we want to be shaped by God's revealed word. In any place where we're falling short of that, either because of ignorance or because of rejection, we want to make correction. So if you would reach out to us in any place where you think that we are in error in our teaching or in our practice, we would love to hear from you. This program you can access@backtothebiblepodcast.com and there you can find information about the program and you can look at older episodes and even archives of previous versions of the program and access other resources that we hope that you find to be helpful. As we come into our study of Romans chapter 12, it's important to see that this begins somewhat of a new section in the book of Romans. Romans chapters 1 through 11 we might think of as theology or doctrine. What we think of there are the foundations and the principles of what it is that we believe about Jesus and about the Gospel. And in this second section from chapters 12 all the way through almost the end of 15, and then we'll have some closing remarks. We have this section of application. That is, what do we do with the truth that we have Learned in chapters 1 through 11? You might think of it as roots and fruits, or foundations and applications or doctrine and practice. Of course, that is not to say that there was no application in chapters 1 through 11. Of course there is. And we learn so much about God and who he is and Jesus and what he has accomplished and how the Spirit will affect our lives. And I think chapters five and chapters eight talk about how that will affect our hope and how it will affect our conduct. Chapter six talks about the fact that we don't enslave our ourselves to sin anymore. There's a number of practical applications that we can draw out of chapters one through 11. And it's not to say that there's no theology. It's not to say that there's not any foundational teaching in chapters 12 through 16. There certainly are foundational doctrinal theological concepts that are presented through these chapters. I think we learn a lot about foundational principles in these chapters. However, just for the sake of clarity and for simplicity, I think it is right to see Paul basing all of his teaching in chapters 12 through 16 on the foundations he lays in chapters one through 11 and in chapters one through 11. I don't think it's. I think it's important to see. I don't think it's redundant to say. I think that the idea of chapters 1 through 11 is that for the Gentile who wants to be a follower of Jesus, the right answer is not circumcision or sabbath day keeping or having the old law imposed on him. The answer is Christ. The answer is that God's righteousness, his faithfulness to his promises has been displayed in Jesus faithfulness. And the call now for us is to give our faithfulness, our loyalty, our allegiance to Jesus. Of course we read chapter six that though we once were the slaves of sin, we have now become the slaves of righteousness. That the Romans, he writes to them and says that they had committed themselves to that form of teaching which he had entrusted them. And so what I think we see in chapters 12 through 16 is alright, if that's the case, what does responding to Jesus faithfulness appropriately look like? And I think chapters 12, 13, 14 and 15 are wonderful chapters to consider when we want to think about what it would look like to live as a disciple of Jesus. Of course there will be principles from chapters one through 11 that we will make reference to. But I want us to begin here in chapters 12, 1, 2, where he says there, this is the legacy Standard translation. Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship and and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is that which is good and pleasing and perfect. So in this verse, look at verse one. Therefore of course, when we see a therefore, we want to know what it's there for. And as we've just said, I think Paul is saying, in view of all the things that I have said, in view of the fact that the world was lost in sin. In view of the fact that by faith we have been able to come into God's mercy and grace. In view of the fact that God demonstrated His love to us in Jesus. In view of the fact that we are now free from sin and enslaved to righteousness, that we are to have the Spirit dwelling in us, that we, whatever difficulties we face, we can be more than conquerors through him who loved us. In view of the fact that God has not rejected the people of the Jewish nation, but invites them to be grafted back in through their faithfulness to Christ. In view of all that Paul says, I'm pleading with you, I am begging you, I am beseeching you, I am exhorting you that you would present your bodies as a sacrifice. Some translations say a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God. I like the way that the legacy standard renders this because it gives us those three adjectives for the kind of sacrifice that we are to be in view of Jesus faithfulness. And how is Jesus faithfulness? How is Jesus faithful? By giving himself as that offering, as that sacrifice, as that propitiation for our sins in view of his offering. You give yourself as a sacrifice? You give yourself as an offering? What kind of offering? Well, an offering that is living, an offering that is holy, and an offering that is pleasing to God. This merits attention. What does that mean with regards to the sacrifice? Well, I think the first thing that we should see is that as we give ourselves as a living sacrifice, we're giving ourselves as a sacrifice that is living. Not that our throats are slit and we're laid on the altar, but rather that we give ourselves, our lives to Jesus in dedication to him. So Galatians chapter 2 in verse 20, where Paul would say, I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live. And I live by faith or by faithfulness in him, in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. See, when Paul talks about being a living sacrifice, he is saying, it's not as if you literally die, but you are dead. And it's Christ who lives in you and the life that you are living now. You are living in dedication, in honor, in allegiance to the One who loved you and gave Himself for you. And so I love. Second Corinthians, chapter 5 and verse 14 and 15, where he says that the love of Christ compels us, what do we do? We see that because of him who died and was raised on our behalf, that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for him who gave his life for us. So we are a living sacrifice. I think this is an important principle. I think sometimes disciples of Jesus are willing. At least they say they're willing. They're ready to die in service to the Lord. Let them come and try to get me. I will. And yet what happens is we fail in day in, day out, day out being living sacrifices. Jesus would tell his disciples in Luke chapter nine that they had to take up their cross daily. Being a living sacrifice demands not just some great act of sacrifice at the end, but day in, day out serving as a living sacrifice. One writer said, you know, the great danger about living sacrifices is that they can crawl off the altar. And so we must make that regular daily commitment that we live as sacrifices. The second thing is that it was supposed to be a sacrifice that was one that was holy, that is set apart for his purposes. I'm not my own and I don't belong to the world anymore. I have been set apart. Designated dedicated to the Lord. In First Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, Paul will talk about sexual immorality. And he will say, you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. That is the price that has been paid for us. And I think this is in reference. Think about what Paul says. Therefore, by the mercies of God, in view of what God has done for you, in view of the price with which you have been paid, you don't belong to yourself anymore. You are Christ's, so you got to glorify God in your body. Peter will emphasize the high cost of that price, that you were not purchased with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of the land. So why would you use yourself in some cheap way? And so as a living sacrifice, One aspect of that, maybe a foundational aspect of that we would say, is that we live our lives in dedication to. To God's purposes, that we no longer live for ourselves, for our will, for the world, for its ways, but we have dedicated ourselves to be used for God's special purposes. We are a holy people. And then he says, a sacrifice that pleases God. This is the great aim of the life of the disciple. Paul would say in second Corinthians, chapter five, he says, I make it my aim which, whether present or absent, to be pleasing to him. He says, I have made it my ambition. That is my aim. I teach high school. And so every once in a while I get to talk to Young people about their ambitions, what's their aim, what do they want to do after this, what do they want to accomplish? And I've told young people this. I don't care what you do. I don't care if you're an engineer, I don't care if you're a doctor, I don't care if you're a salesman. I don't care if you are a maintenance worker. I don't care if you are a teacher. I don't care whatever realm you want to go into. Wonderful. But your ambition needs to be pleasing the Lord. And that is true whether we're a young person who's trying to decide what our career path is going to be, or maybe we're middle aged and that's already been decided and we're pretty locked into that, or maybe we're in our retirement years. Whatever our role in life may be, our ambition, our aim needs to be that we are pleasing to the Lord. And so based on, and I want you to see this, this is in view of the kind of sacrifice that Jesus was. Jesus gave his life and I know it's right to focus on that one act of righteousness when he gives his life as a sacrifice. But Jesus doesn't just give himself on the cross as a sacrifice. And that was all the sacrifice he made. He emptied himself. He took on the form of a human and he humbled himself to obedience, even to the point of death on a cross. He was a living sacrifice. And then he was dedicated to God's purposes and made every effort and always did. He would say in the book of John, he always, always did what was pleasing to God. And in view of that sacrifice, we are called to give our lives in dedication to Jesus as well. He doesn't just die instead of us, though he does feel a role in that that we could not feel. But he dies ahead of us. And he says, if you want to follow me, you've got to take up your cross. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. So we become a sacrifice modeling our life after Jesus, and he continues. That is your spiritual service of worship. If you're using another translation, the footnote in the legacy standard, instead of spiritual, it has the word rational. And some texts will say rational or reasonable. The idea of spiritual is internal. And so some translators have lean towards interpreting that as your intellectual, the reasonable, rational response. And I think that's right. I think what he's saying is in view of what God has done for you, in view of the mercies of God, that this is the right, reasonable, rational way of responding. This is just what makes sense in view of what God has done for you. And that phrase, spiritual service of worship, if I understand correctly, that word used to refer to the habits, the roles, the responsibilities of, like, the Levites in the Old Testament. And so their daily activities were their service of worship. And there's a longer conversation that we can have about this. I don't think that all of our life is worship in the same sense as when we have those dedicated moments. There are specific passages that are moments where somebody goes to worship which is different than what they do in their daily, ordinary lives. And yet there is a sense, obviously, in Romans 12, that our whole life is an offering to God. And so when we think about this, this is our service of worship. It is our daily ministering. It's our daily service in honor of what God has done for us. Now, he says this in verse 2, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And there's a lot of application we can make to this. But what happens is sometimes we allow ourselves to just be poured into the mold of the society around us. And I think that's true in the way we dress. And I think that's true in the way we talk about the way we think and the way we act. And there is, of course, some degree to which we're going to dress like the people around us, right? We wear pants and T shirts or shoes or whatever. But when we're talking about what's right and wrong, there is such a danger that we allow our minds to just be shaped by the world around us, that we are like water just poured into the mold. And in that way, we're just pushed and shaped and pulled by the world's thinking. And what he says here in contrast, I think shows us how to make sure that doesn't happen to us. He says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is, something needs to happen where we're not just thinking like the world thinks, but where our mind is refreshed. It is renewed, it is transformed because we have a new line of thinking. And I think that we would see, as we look into God's word, that that is the means by which our mind is reshaped. Paul talks about them being in Romans chapter six. He says, thanks be to God that though you were the servants of sin, you became of slaves of righteousness in accordance with the doctrine with which I entrusted you. And the idea there is that they stopped listening to what was around them and started listening to what Paul had to say. Paul would write in First Thessalonians chapter 2, that the word of God was at work in those who believed that they received it not as the word of men, but as the word of God, which is what it really was. And I think throughout the New Testament especially, we can see that God's word has the potential to shape our thinking, to transform us from the inside out now, because that's the way that works. How is it that we become conformed to the world? I think it's the same process. It's what we listen to. So if we spend all of our time watching the news, or if we spend all of our time flipping through social media, or if we spend a lot of our time reading the novels that are written, some of that, sure, there's probably going to be some dose of that in our lives. But the problem is when we allow that to overwhelm the renewal process that's happening in our minds, our minds are being shaped by our intake. And when we're taking in what is not in line with God's will, then we are in a dangerous situation with what our minds are going to look like on the other side. Now he says there by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve what the will of God is. I don't think he's saying we live in such a way so that we can say, yep, God's word is good. I think it's about discernment. I think he's saying so that you can discern what the will of God is. Good and acceptable and perfect. I think he's saying as we make the decision to be a living sacrifice, as we decide that we're going to give ourselves to the Lord, and as we make that commitment to listen to him, we will learn, we will see what God's will is. We will see what's good and acceptable and perfect. And we will have our senses trained over time to be able to determine that even more. We might be able to distinguish between what's okay and but what's good and what's good and what's even better. And so that is a process that will take place over time. Now when we come to verses three through eight, Paul begins maybe to make specific application of that. So God's faithfulness seen in Jesus and in his work. And we are called to give ourselves as sacrifices. And he says for notice this in verse three. For through the grace given to me, I say to each one among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound thinking, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. But having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy in agreement with the faith or service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with generosity, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. In this paragraph, Paul is saying, in view of the fact that we are to be living sacrifices, that we are giving our lives to the Lord, we need to consider ourselves in relationship to one another. I think this is a very important connection. Jesus gave Himself for us. We are dedicating our lives to Him. So we don't need to be arrogant. We don't need to be thinking about ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Rather, we need to think of ourselves in a sound, healthy way. Now, what he talks about here is the gifts or the abilities or the opportunities that we have to serve. Now, I think there's a danger. I think we see this in the First Corinthian letter. I think there's a danger in thinking about the gifts that we have as something that would give us reason to boast, something that would give us reason to exalt in ourselves. And what Paul does here is he frames the way that we think about our abilities and our gifts in a way that helps us to use them and use them well without being misconstrued as to what they are. So first of all, remember that you're a sacrifice. You've dedicated yourself to the Lord. Pleasing him is what's the most important thing. In view of that, there's a couple of things we need to think about. These gifts that we have as gifts, right? These are not about how excellent you are. You may be an excellent person. You may be just really wonderful. But the gifts that we have are given to us. There's an old saying that sometimes people are born on third base and think they hit a triple. And I think that is certainly the case. Whatever gifts or abilities we have, we are given. Now, sometimes God gives us those. I think there are people, for example, who can sing or can do public speaking. And it's like man, they were just born with that ability just from the very Beginning, they were able to do those sorts of things. And then there are some people who have gifts and abilities that have been trained into them for a long time. And you. You say, well, they worked really hard for that. Yes. And they had teachers and they had coaches, or they had trainers, or they had directors, or they had guides or mentors in that, that helped shape them. And maybe you say, well, this person just learned it. They went to work, they learned it by themselves. But the time and the opportunity and the ability and even the skill to be able to take all of that in, it's a gift. So when we think about our ability. So if you're a great singer, or if you're a great public speaker, or you're really good at managing money, or you're very faithful in your service to one another, be very careful that we don't think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. The great danger of faithfulness is pride. Because here you are, you're doing your job, you're meeting your task, and you're doing it in a wonderful way. And the devil sees your faithfulness in that. And he sneaks around the back door in order to try to encourage you to be proud about that, to be arrogant, to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think. And that is a great danger for disciples. And so he says, remember that these things that you have are a gift. And also remember that they are to be used because you are part of a body of which you are members with one another. So it would be like my thumb, my opposable thumb, which is really incredible, right? But he can't think more highly of himself than he ought to think, because as good as he can do, there's a lot he can't do with pointer without pointer finger, right? And so Paul will make this point, for example, in the first Corinthian letter, about those spiritual gifts, that God doesn't give everyone the same gift because he doesn't make every body part exactly the same. Same because we all have to work together in order to accomplish the purposes that God has given us. So if we think about our gifts, if we think about our abilities, first as gifts and second as to be used for one another, then it helps us begin to frame our gifts and abilities. I think that means that we don't shy away from using them. I think that means we're not embarrassed by the fact that we can do that. I think it helps us, but it also keeps us from being proud and saying, look at me. I'm the one who can do this, or from being selfish and saying, I'm going to use this for my purposes. But I also think that it helps us to celebrate other people's gifts and to appreciate that there are people who are better at lots of things than you and I are. And because of that, we don't have to say, man, I wish I was that way. Maybe I would like to be like that. Maybe I would like to grow and develop to be more like that. But I can say, but I am thankful that they are like that. I'm thankful that they can encourage. I'm thankful that they can speak, I'm thankful that they can sing, or that they can share in those certain ways. Now let me say this. We are in one body, we are all in Christ, but we are different than one another. But I want us to see here in this list in verses six and following that, there's gifts that differ. Now some of these, I think we would say are directly what we might think spiritually empowered gifts, that is gifts that come from the power of the Holy Spirit in some way, in a miraculous way. But some of them, I don't know that we would necessarily say that that's what's happening. Service or exhortation or giving or leading or mercy. In fact, really only the one that I see here that I would say would be inspired in some way would be prophecy. So what I think is we can also, we can draw the application today, even if this might would have applied in some ways, like Paul applies it over and over in First Corinthians to like tongue speaking or knowledge or prophecy or something like that. But what we see here is that some people are better in certain roles and that they need to serve in those roles to their highest capability. If they're prophesying, they've got to make sure that it's in alignment with what they have already been, what has already been revealed. If they're serving, they need to do so with a service mentality. If they're teaching, they need to make sure that they are appreciating these principles even in their teaching. And when somebody gives, they need to be generous in doing that. If they are leading, they need to be diligent. If they're being merciful, they need to do it with church. Let me say that I don't think that that means that like the leader is not supposed to be merciful, and I don't think it means that the teacher is not supposed to be a leader. I think sometimes those things overlap. But I also think that some people are going to be more capable than others. And in those roles, we need to remember that these are gifts that we have to be shared with one another to be used for one another's sake. Well, we didn't make it very far into Romans chapter 12, but there are a lot of principles that we've covered already that are going to shape the way that we read the rest of this chapter and really the rest of this letter, because what Paul is calling them to is giving themselves as a sacrifice to the Lord in view of one another. And we're going to see that through chapter 12, through chapter 13, chapter 14, chapter 15. Jesus gave Himself for us. In view of that, we are sacrifices, serving him and giving ourselves to one another. The rest of that will have to wait until another time. Until then, we bid you a pleasant good day.
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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.